LARIMER COUNTY — Evacuating from the path of wildfires is becoming frighteningly familiar for residents near Lory State Park, who were also forced to leave last summer during the High Park fire.

"Last night, I was a wreck," said Paula Hardin, 62, who was evacuated from her home on Birch Drive, north of the park. "I probably slept about three hours because I thought, 'What if the wind shifts?' But no, I'm really not nervous now."

Hardin said she and her husband were evacuated twice during the High Park fire, which destroyed 259 houses in Larimer County in June. So far, the Galena fire has consumed up to 1,000 acres but has not destroyed any homes or buildings.

Hardin said she received an automated warning call early Friday afternoon.

Jaryn Oakley, left, steadies Drew Wallace against the wind as he takes a photo of smoke from the Soldier Canyon fire near Horsetooth Reservoir. (Jenny Sparks, Loveland Reporter-Herald)

She rushed toward her house because her husband had just had shoulder surgery and couldn't drive the only vehicle left at their home — a stick shift. But Larimer County sheriff's deputies stopped her at 12:30 p.m. because they had already evacuated her neighborhood.

She had to wait until 5 p.m., when deputies lifted the evacuation order on her neighborhood and allowed her to return to her home.

Frank Aaron, 70, who lives in the Inlet Bay area, said he's getting too old for all the evacuations.

"It's getting on my nerves a little bit," he said. "If this keeps going on like for 10 years. You know, we're no spring chickens. Can we really take this getting out all the time?"

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He said that during the High Park fire, he and his wife, Janet, 68, were on pre-evacuation notice for two weeks.

"It's sort of like you get to go home but you are still walking on eggshells," he said.

After the High Park fire, his house insurance increased 70 percent — and he's worried that it'll take another big jump this year.

Also, Doyle Smith, 70, and his wife, Audrey, 69, were evacuated during both fires.

Smith went to a Saturday morning news conference and got good news. His home in the Inlet Bay area had not been destroyed. Smith received an emergency call Friday while he was in Denver. He rushed to the Larimer County evacuation center and at about 5:30 p.m. asked whether he could go to his house to get medicine.

"My wife is on oxygen, and I'm a diabetic, and all our medicine is in the house," Smith said. "I went over, and they were extremely kind, took me in, let me get my medicine and one more change of clothes. I couldn't get anything else. There just wasn't any more time."

He could see the flames from his home.

"This is getting to be a habit. However, last year the flames never got close to us," he said. "The thing of it is, this week I was going to put the house on the market to sell because we want to move to town where there are not as many steps."

He said he will still put the house on the market after already buying a home in Fort Collins, but he is now worried about possible smoke damage.

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